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Philippines agrees food marketing "pledge programme"

The Philippines Association of National Advertisers (PANA) has succeeded in gaining agreement among six major food companies (Coca-Cola, Kraft, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo. and Unilever) to commit to changing how they advertise to children.

The "Philippine Pledge" (see text attached) commits participants to only advertising to children under 12 years products which fulfil specific nutrition criteria based on accepted scientific evidence and/or applicable national and international dietary guidelines relevant to children. It also forbids commercial communication to primary school students unless specifically requested, or agreed with, the school administrators for educational or informational purposes. These are the minimum requirements; participating companies will develop action plans which may go beyond the minimum criteria.

PANA and participating companies are now reviewing how to expand the number of participating companies and officially launching the programme. They then plan on turning their attentions to monitoring in order to demonstrate corporate compliance with their commitments. For this, PANA is envisaging a possible role for the local Advertising Standards Council (ASC), the industry-wide advertising self-regulatory organisation.

The Philippine Pledge follows similar or identical initiatives already launched in US, Canada, the EU, Thailand, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Mexico, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), India and Switzerland. Discussions are well advanced in a range of other markets with a view to launching further local pledge programmes.

Pledge programmes are coordinated and lead by members of the International Food and Beverage Alliance, which includes Ferrero, General Mills, Grupo Bimbo, Kellogg, Kraft, Mars, Nestlé, PepsiCo, The Cola-Cola Company and Unilever. These companies have developed a global policy on advertising and marketing to children, which constitutes the global blueprint for pledge programmes worldwide.